More than a year after the city of Hoboken laid off 13 city workers in a well-publicized layoff plan, Mayor Dawn Zimmer and the city are spending hours fighting one employee’s appeal in the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) court in Newark. Testimony obtained exclusively by the Reporter shows that the laid-off employee’s attorney has sparred with Zimmer over many controversial political issues that have occurred in town over the last year, including raises for Zimmer’s two aides, and internet blogs that appear to favor Zimmer.

Zimmer recently testified for more than four hours in one day in the OAL court regarding the appeal of former city Public Information Officer Bill Campbell’s layoff.

A ST. PATRICK'S Day parade has been a tradition in Hoboken for a quarter of a century. The tradition ends this year, and it is a loss to all in North Jersey.

New Jersey is often overshadowed by New York. The St. Patrick's Day parade in Manhattan is bigger. Unfortunately, the people pouring out of bars and parties in Hoboken on the day of its parade are drunker or at least less controlled. The Hoboken St. Patrick's Parade Committee's decision last week to cancel the parade traditionally held on the first Saturday in March is an admission that Hoboken cannot guarantee the safety of the spectators who come from far and wide to celebrate.

New Jersey is set to clamp down on a North Jersey hospital that insurance companies claim is billing them as much as 3,000 percent more than its own outpatient surgery centers charge for the same treatment.

Part of the plan by Gov. Chris Christie’s administration to contain rising auto insurance rates targets the business practices of Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center in Secaucus, bought in December by the owners of three surgery centers in Bergen and Essex counties.

Since then, the new owners have been referring auto accident victims from their same-day surgery center to Meadowlands to take advantage of a fee loophole, according to insurance executives and confirmed by the Department of Banking and Insurance. The state limits what same-day surgery centers may charge, but it does not regulate what hospitals may charge for most outpatient care. And at Meadowlands, that difference can be substantial insurers and state officials say.

The former head of the Hoboken Parking Utility is facing eight years in prison after appearing in Superior Court on Friday to admit his role in the theft of $600,000 from that city’s parking meters.

John P. Corea pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Francis R. Hodgson Jr. to official misconduct, a second-degree crime carrying a potential prison term of 10 years.

In entering his guilty plea, Corea, 45, a Hoboken resident, admitted steering three no-bid contracts to United Textile Fabricators, an arcade game manufacturer headed by a Toms River man, to collect and count coins from Hoboken’s parking meters.

Corea told the judge he made false statements to the Hoboken City Council about the company’s qualifications, and that he came to believe that the head of the company, Brian A. Petaccio, 51, of Toms River, had stolen a substantial amount of the city’s parking revenues.

Hudson County hospitals were front and center at a state Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Senate subcommittee meeting on Monday that focused on for-profit hospitals in New Jersey.

The hearing came just days after allegations of bankruptcy fraud were made against Hoboken University Medical Center (HUMC), and on the same day it was reported in The Star Ledger that Meadowlands Hospital in Secaucus charges up to 3,000 percent higher for certain procedures by using a loophole in the medical system.

In Hudson County and across the country, failing hospitals are being bought by companies that try to turn a profit at these formerly non-profit institutions. But some worry that patient care will suffer as a result.

The ownership group of Bayonne Medical Center may be as well versed in the art of Trenton politics as it is in medicine.

Facing legislative calls for increased oversight of for-profit hospitals as it pursues a controversial deal at Hoboken University Medical Center, the group has spent more than $350,000 in the past two years on political campaigns and high-powered lobbyists to make their case at the Statehouse, records show.

The Bayonne hospital paid Rosemont Associates, a lobbying firm that employs former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) to help convince the chairmen of the state legislative budget committees to support an $11 million earmark to ease the sale of the Hoboken University Medical Center, records show.

Two key Democratic lawmakers are planning to strengthen a law that requires the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office to oversee the transfer of non-profit hospitals.

The move comes after the proposed sale of the Hoboken University Medical Center escaped the stringent review by successfully arguing that its status as a city-run hospital exempts it from the Community Healthcare Assets Protection Act, or CHOPA.

Under the law, the attorney general’s reviews all aspects of the sale of non-profit hospital, including whether the seller is getting fair market value, ensuring conflicts of interest are disclosed, the bidding process is fair and a host of items designed to protect the public. A superior court judge must also give their final opinion on the sale.

One of the major criticisms of the Hoboken sale has been the lack of transparency. Among other items, the public has yet to see the applications of the other bidders beside the successful one — the ownership group of the Bayonne Medical Center. Council members were just provided the financial statements of the hospital Wednesday.

The CEO of the Jersey City Medical Center has reached out to state and local officials to let them know he is still willing to buy the Hoboken University Medical Center if bankruptcy settlement negotiations falter and the proposed sale collapses.

Joe Scott, CEO of Jersey City Medical Center, said he contacted Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer and the state Department of Health and Senior Services Thursday morning just hours after Hoboken City Council rejected a last-minute effort to salvage negotiations.

Minutes after the vote, Zimmer said the oldest hospital in the state would close and roughly 1,300 people would lose their jobs.

"I let them know we stand ready to do whatever it takes to ensure there is a organized transition with the hospital if this deal falls apart,'' Scott said. "We have a partner willing to buy the hospital and placed a bid…We were going to lease space from them.''

Creditors are seeking more than $10 million from Hoboken University Hospital as a part of a broad bankruptcy settlement that would allow for the sale of the cash-strapped facility, according to sources with knowledge of the ongoing negotiations. 

However, the city is reluctant to pick up the extra costs, inching the hospital closer to shutting it doors, according to sources who asked for anonymity because they did not want to disrupt ongoing negotiations.   

Officials with the creditors committee, the city and its hospital held a seven-hour negotiating session Monday in hopes of settling the bankruptcy dispute before a pivotal hearing on Thursday, according to sources.

A state senator has asked the U.S. Attorney and the state Attorney General to investigate allegations of fraud raised by the former attorney of Hoboken University Hospital before the state decides whether its pending sale can move forward.

Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) sent letters to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman and state Attorney Paula Dow asking them to probe charges by Donald Scarinci, who resigned as the hospital’s attorney two weeks before it filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 1.

In court papers, Scarinci said he quit because the city-backed authority created to oversee the hospital withheld millions in contractual payments to help make it appear it was in duress and push it into bankruptcy. The ultimate goal, he said, was to ensure an investment group that owns the Bayonne Medical Center gets to purchase the hospital. The group wants to buy the hospital for $65 million and convert it to a private facility.